with you in my head
by The Scarlett Ribbon
Summary: build me up and tear me down - KyokoShoutaro
1. lies in the quiet

**title: with you in my head**

**pairing: KyokoShoutaro**

**summary: build me up and tear me down. **

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><p><em>with you in my head<em>

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><p>It's give and take with them – always has been. Or rather, it was Kyoko that would give and he that would take, when they were children. Shoutaro looks around the empty apartment that they shared, listens to the rush of the city beyond the walls and the stale silence. Everything smells of dust.<p>

When he strokes his fingers along the table in the centre of the room, he leaves dark streaks on the surface. Disgusting.

This whole place is disgusting and he doesn't know why he keeps paying the rent on an apartment that he never spent that much time in anyway. It's pointless. Kyoko doesn't live here anymore. He remembers the gleam in her eyes on that day she walked into the studio unannounced and unwanted.

She's gone for good; disappeared. Shoutaro knows that.

_I only took her along to be a servant, _he thinks. _That's all she was ever good for. _

But a part of him, long buried, has gone cold and still since that first night he came back to find her things gone, the apartment empty. After ten years of unrelenting devotion on her part, it still seems bizarre, absurd that she could simply turn her back and walk out on him.

"_I only took her along to be a servant," _he'd said carelessly that day. Shoutaro had never imagined she would overhear him, much less what her reaction would be. It's thrown him a little, he'll admit it – even if only to himself.

"_I'm going to get revenge, Shoutaro Fuwa!" _

Even now her voice – dark and malicious and so unlike the little girl who chased his shadow – echoes in the dead space between them. Tokoyo is a huge city and she is gone and even if he wanted to find her, he can't.

He remembers the darkness in her, the terrifying rage he never knew she was capable of and how it had felt almost satisfying at the time. To see her snap and show she was capable of more than blind adoration, no matter how much that adoration had suited him. It got boring after a while and there were always prettier, curvier girls for his thoughts to chase than plain-Jane Kyoko.

Now, alone and away from Shouko's pretty eyes and the feel of her skin beneath his palms, he remembers something else. In that split second before he turned around to see Kyoko standing there, eyes wide, hair tangled over the nape of her neck, he could have sworn he'd heard the sound of something shattering.

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><p><strong>notes: seriously. i don't even know where this came from. no one who likes healthy relationships would ship this. notes2: literally started reading Skip Beat! yesterday. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU READ 91 CHAPTERS OF A MANGA IN LESS THAN 24 HOURS. FML. <strong>

**yeah. I'm going to blame Sara for this, but basically - if you like this enough to fav/alert my stuff, then it's surely worth the time to leave a review. feedback is the only way i can improve as a writer, so...thank's sweets :)**


	2. the mask that slips

**title: with you in my head**

**pairing: KyokoShoutaro**

**summary: build me up and tear me down**

**dedication: to the lovely _Kaze and Kiba. _**

_with you in my head_

"Hello, I'm Kyoko," the girl says, all smiles and bright eyes and Shoutaro's first thought is that he must be mistaken – there is no way this can be _her, _because he remembers. He remembers that Kyoko hates him now and there is no way, after the things he said and she screamed, that meeting again, she would be able to smile at him like this.

"Whatever," he says, dismissive, always dismissive because he's _Sho-fucking-Fuwa_ and his name means something now. It means screaming girls and the number one spot at the top of the charts. It means TV interviews and being too cool to watch comedies, thanks very much.

Of course, Kyoko would never be able to get this far – he's not sure what he was thinking when he demanded the use of this girl in his PV.

Except, of course, that all those hours spent in front of the TV watching that soda commercial over and over – pausing it for the longest time at the close up of this girl's face – speak for themselves. He thinks now that it must have been a trick of the light that made him curious. Simple curiosity; that's all it was.

"It's so sweet of you to come and find me," the girl coo's, trotting along behind him, but he's not really listening anymore. Shoutaro has never been good at listening. He's an idol now; he doesn't _have _to listen, doesn't even have to put up a decent pretence that he is.

And there is a slow cavern growing in his chest, in the pit of his stomach that makes him feel like storming away and smashing up his dressing room as thoroughly as he possibly can. His hands are clenched into fists and he wants to shake this stupid, stupid girl because she is not the one he was looking (hoping) for.

Since he saw that stupid commercial, smashing things up and breaking them into tiny pieces has been all he's felt like doing, because it hits him over and over – he doesn't know where Kyoko is.

Shoutaro stalks down the hall, this little slip of nothing calling herself _Kyoko _following along behind him.

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><p>He is almost too preoccupied to feel the black, poisonous daggers stabbing into his back at every turn. Almost.<p>

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><p>When she flicks the packet of salt at him across the table top, the world stops for a minute. Because there is knowledge in her tawny eyes that only someone from his past could possess. Sho is an <em>idol, <em>but Shoutaro…Shoutaro is a boy like any other and he does not like sweet food. Hates it. Would turn his nose up at it happily, except that would tarnish his perfect image, wouldn't it?

It is only for a split second, but as he picks up the salt packet Kyoko's expression is so pained it is as if she has swallowed glass – and the façade slips.

Their eyes meet over the table and Shoutaro feels the smirk creep up on him.

_Gotcha, _he thinks. It tastes like a victory.

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><p><strong>notes: I don't know what it is, but I love Shoutaro. he's a shit, but also interesting and fun to write. <strong>

**notes2: WHY DO I NEVER SHIP THE HEALTHY/HAPPY RELATIONSHIPS? **


	3. tables that turn

**title: with you in my head**

**pairing: KyokoShoutaro**

**summary: build me up and tear me down**

**dedication: to happiness. for some reason, growing up makes it harder to keep hold of. **

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><p><em>with you in my head<em>

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><p>And he should have the upper hand, he knows.<p>

Shoutaro is the star – the idol – of the entertainment industry and this is his PV. He could have her booted out the studio with a click of his fingers before Kyoko even has time to blink. He's done it before, after all. No regrets.

(But the silence that sprang up in her absence still leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.)

And besides, his little lapdog of a girlfriend – always trailing behind him with stars in her eyes and simpering smiles on her lips – has begun to bore him. Kyoko's newfound ferocity hints at entertainment, or even better – a challenge.

"I'm going to live to make you regret not tossing me out when you had the chance," she says. "I'm going to show you up so badly, it'll make you want to _die._"

_Fine, _he thinks, with a sneer as patronising as he can make it. _Go ahead and try. _

Kyoko cannot act, but he wants to see her struggle, like a petulant child throwing a temper tantrum. She can scream all she wants about vengeance; Sho is untouchable.

And if there's a part of him that wants her to surprise him – the remains of that helpless little boy who watched his closest friend cry like the world was ending, because of a mother that could not show love – then he does not acknowledge it.

_I know you, _he thinks, recalling that little girl. _You are the girl who never meets expectations. _

But when Kyoko emerges from the costume department, he does not immediately recognise her.

Tall, blonde, ethereally beautiful – he's looking at an _angel. _It is more than the costume and the childhood friend has slipped into the skin of her role as effortlessly as breathing.

Her eyes, when they meet his, are cold and somehow…alien.

A shiver rolls down Shoutaro's spine and he realises that what little of Kyoko he can see behind the mask of her character is someone unfamiliar and unknown to him. A strange little smile plays around her mouth and this is not the girl he knows like the back of his hand.

_Who are you? _

And suddenly the game between them has turned, the chessboard fallen on its side and gravity shifts with the understanding.

Shoutaro isn't sure who has the upper hand anymore.

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><p><strong>An: wrote this in literally half an hour. must have felt inspired, or something. **

**reviews would be lovely.**


	4. your poison prince

**title: with you in my head**

**pairing: KyokoShoutaro**

**summary: build me up and tear me down**

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><p><em>with you in my head<em>

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><p>And he realises it afterwards, why he couldn't close his eyes.<p>

"The perfect couple," he murmurs again, that one idea on replay in his brain – the shattering of the one constant he'd always had. _The perfect couple._

That was what they were supposed to be, once. Back in Kyoto, when he was Shoutaro and Kyoko was sweet and dedicated and utterly unspoiled, that's what they were. They were a couple, even when they weren't – the handsome boy and the innocent girl. And he thought he knew all her secrets, because she knew all of his.

But when Kyoko cries, he forgets that they're on set, that the cameras are rolling – he forgets everything but one bright burning memory in a flash of a moment, as he falls. He remembers her, small and helpless and heartbroken. Alone. Shoutaro remembers the way he would freeze up on the inside, and watch her sob her heart out.

He lands on his feet, heavily, clumsily, the air knocked out of him by this one recollection that makes him suddenly seven years old again, speechless, useless –

He's forgotten how this felt; that wrenching feeling in his chest accompanying every one of her tears.

Because even without her telling him, he'd known how it was with her mother. He'd known and he'd had no idea what to say. Even now, he has a feeling he still wouldn't be able to comfort her.

Shoutaro has forgotten how it feels to be inadequate.

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><p>"<em>You make it sound as if you only took her along to be a servant."<em>

"_Not 'as if'. That's what she was from the start."_

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><p>And it's a lie he doesn't want to acknowledge, because it didn't start out that way did it? Shoutaro chose her. Everything from Kyoto, he discarded carelessly, effortlessly (selfishly), but not her.<p>

Kyoko is the piece of home he chose to take with him – cared enough to keep, but not to treasure.

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><p>When she smiles at him, there's a cold victory curling on her lips but her eyes hunger for more.<p>

"This is just the beginning," she hisses at him in those last few seconds before the director calls it a day and the studio clears, dismantles itself and wipes the canvas clean.

"Is that a promise?" he drawls, lazy, mocking and if no one can see the relief inside that he is still the centre of her universe (even if she hates him, he thinks, even if she wants to set him on fire and watch him burn) so much the better. But he'd still rather everyone see that, the barest truth, than the regret now beginning to smoulder in his bones.

There's a monster growing in Kyoko's little girl skin and Shoutaro knows that he is the one who put it there.

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><p><strong>notes: so despite myself, I still ship this. <strong>

**notes2: bitches be bold and review.**


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